Nile Breweries puts Shs6bn into Barley

By The Independent Team

In a bid to reduce on its costs of production, Nile breweries has stepped up its campaign to use locally grown beer making products. The company which had all along been importing Barley grain from West Germany has embarked on having the Barley grown locally in areas of Kapchorwa, Bukwo, Kigezi, and Agoro hills in Kitgum district. The company has put aside up to Shs 6 billion for the purchase of the Barley in the second season of harvest that begins in Sept this year. This was announced by Nile Breweries Corporate Affairs Director Onapito Ekomoloit during the launch of the Breweries ten Sustainable Development priorities. The sustainable development priorities include discouraging irresponsible drinking, making more beer using less water, reducing energy and carbon footprint, working towards zero waste operations, promoting packaging re-use and recycling and encouraging enterprise development in its value chain. The company also plans to construct a US$4-6million affluent treatment plant. NBL was last financial year ranked the number one tax payer in the financial year ended June 2010 after paying up to Shs 100 billion in VAT and excise duty.

National Bank of Commerce dragged to court

Retired Supreme Court Judge, George Kanyeihamba, has dragged the majority shareholders of the National Bank of Commerce (NBC) who own 86% shares to court over the legality of the bank saying it was wrongfully reconstituted. Kanyeihamba together with 320 other shareholders own 14% of the shares. Kanyeihamba, through his lawyer, alleges that the bank’s name was changed from Kigezi Bank of Commerce without his authorisation and that of the 320 other shareholders. Dragged to court is Amama Mbabazi the security minister, Ruhakana Rugunda Uganda’s permanent representative at the UN, and Amos Nzeeyi a local businessman. Kanyeihamba and his other 320 shareholders want Kigezi Bank to be reinstated and NBC cancelled. The bank in question has a branch on Parliamentary Avenue. It was founded in 1991 by the accused together with Kanyeihamba and the other shareh

olders to provide banking services and soft loans to people in Kigezi. In Oct 2009, the Abu Dhabi Group representative and current chairman of the bank announced they had injected $10m to re-capitalise the bank

Utl to acquire telecom Serbia

The Utl Managing Director Abdulbaset Elazzabi was last week in talks with the Serbian authorities in a bid to acquire the Serbian government owned Telecom Serbia. If the deal goes through, it will be the first of the several international telecom purchases outside Africa that LAP Green is currently reviewing. LAP Green Networks is owned by the Libyan Africa Investment Portfolio incorporated as a Libyan foreign investment platform designed to promote the development of Africa. It owns telecom firms in eight countries including Uganda (Uganda telecom), Rwanda (Rwandatel), Ivory Coast (Green N), and in Niger (Sahelcom).